News

UW student charged in triple homicide

In the first triple homicide in Madison in 31 years, a UW student has been charged with killing three Verona roommates.

Meng-Ju “Mark” Wu, 19, a resident alien from Taiwan, is scheduled to appear in a Queens County court Aug. 5, where he will fight his extradition from New York to Madison.

Prosecutors will attempt to show cause for having Wu returned to Dane County, where he would face three counts of first degree intentional homicide.

“Our office has filed three counts of intentional homicide (against Wu),” said Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard. “If, as we anticipate, the judge in New York decides to extradite him, he would face those charges in Wisconsin.”

If convicted, Wu could face life in prison.

Police speculate the shooting deaths of Jason McGuigan, 28, Dustin Wilson, 17, and Daniel Swanson, 25 on June 26 were related to gambling debts Wu may have incurred.

According to a criminal complaint filed in the Dane County Circuit Court the day after his July 6 arrest in New York, Wu had been helped by McGuigan with placing bets with an off-shore gambling company in the Bahamas.

Wu told police he had lost $15,000 on gambling between April and June 2003 and he had withdrawn $72,000 from his bank account between December and June.

Investigators are still working to solidify a motive and find what they believe is the murder weapon, a 9mm handgun that McGuigan allegedly bought from a Sun Prairie gun dealer June 6.

The gun’s case was found in a dumpster near Wu’s 114 W. Gilman St. apartment along with a sandal with blood matching Wilson’s.

Verona Police Chief Bernie Coughlin told the The Wisconsin State Journal it is unclear whether Wilson and Swanson were involved with gambling or were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The victims were found just before 3 p.m. on June 26. Autopsies showed that McGuigan and Swanson had each been shot twice and Wilson three times.

Before his arrest, Wu was brought back from New York on a material witness warrant and was held on $2 million bail as a material witness in a June 30 hearing.

However, the law prevents someone from being arrested after being brought in on a material witness warrant, and Wu was returned to New York, where he said he was visiting his aunt.

He had a flight to Taiwan scheduled for July 1 to visit his parents, a trip he told police was planned before the shootings. Prosecutors would have faced difficulty if he had gone because the United States has no extradition treaty with Taiwan.

Wu was a full-time student in spring 2003 majoring in Chinese and was registered for the fall as a junior, according to UW spokesman John Lucas.

Lucas also said the university had little information about Wu and that the three victims had “no ties” to the university.

Wu has lived in the U.S. for the past several years and went to high school in Delaware. Wu’s Madison landlord noted that he had no issues concerns with his former tenant during his stay, but would not comment further.

Fellow students in the campus-area neighborhood where he lived said they didn’t know him, nor did members of the Taiwanese Student Association, which serves as a resource for international students from Taiwan, The State Journal reported.

More than 50 people from 11 Dane County law enforcement agencies and the FBI have been involved in the case.